They say that you had to work very hard to understand the politician Fraga. His brain worked so fast that he found it difficult to express what he thought clearly because his words could not follow the flow of his ideas. Alright, well few investors would have bet on Fraga. To invest in someone you must understand them and reach the conclusion that they can do what they say they can.
Is it possible for a linguist to invent an algorhythm better than Google’s? They can, but it is not likely. A mathematician would have more credibility a priori. If I am a linguist and I am determined to present a big project to modernize quantum mathematics, however confident I am, you must understand that the investor would be doubtful. If I have never done anything in business, I have spent 10 years doing things online and suddenly I want 3 million to change the world, some doubts will arise. If I only have myself and the help of a programmer in India without a degree, it is more difficult for an investor to bet on a project that I present than it would be if I, after successfully selling an Internet company and having put forward a million Euros from my own pocket, have succeeded in gathering a winning team around me.
Martin Varsavsky often says that the Spanish do not know how to sell. He’s right. But now there is a new series of “would be” entrepreneurs who want to receive financing without having demonstrated anything beforehand, in a field they do not know well. Investors must be able to have confidence that the entrepreneur has, at least, an approach based on the business they are proposing and knowledge of the field, their competitors and the other investors who are already in the project’s sector, trying to move forward.
I myself have a certain credibility on the Internet. What would the investing community think of me if I suddenly wanted to bring about an extensive real estate project in Brazil? They would tell me that I don’t have the credentials for it. And if I suddenly wanted to do it, I would have no other option than to surround myself with people from that sector who would give me credibility and would let the investing community see that I have made up for my deficiencies, in terms of the knowledge of the market, with the rest of my team.
Many entrepreneurs do not understand this and get frustrated when someone tells them that they don’t have the logical credentials to be able to take the proposed project forward. Are we wrong sometimes? I am sure we are, but we cannot risk our investors’ money on projects that seem entirely impossible.
At worst we lose the next Google that comes from the hand of a shepherd from the Alpujarras who learned to read at the age of 25, but you cannot predict success in environments that have none of the canes necessary for it.
Translated by Babelic.com
